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Challenges of Indonesia’s economic policies in the post-pandemic age: Improving effectiveness toward efficiency and equity
Last modified: 2023-05-05
Abstract
The Covid 19 pandemic caused Indonesia to recession in the third quarter of 2020 after experiencing negative economic growth year on year for three quarters. The trend of weakening quarterly economic growth has occurred since 2019. After carrying out various socioeconomic policies from 2020-2021, development performance appears to be improving. The global impact of the Russia vs Ukraine war positively and negatively impacted Indonesia's economic performance, both sectoral and regional. The Indonesian government has implemented various micro and macro socio-economic policies to strengthen the Indonesian economy so that it can overcome the negative impact of the Covid19 pandemic on the economy and the global impact of Russia vs Ukraine war. These policies cover fundamental changes in socio-economic institutions, namely in the form of revisions to laws and regulations, these are first, the Omnibus Law on Job Creation which aims to encourage investment and create jobs; second, a Government Regulation replacing a Law in the field of state finance to encourage more expansive government spending to deal with Covid 19, specifically the National Economic Recovery (PEN) program; third, implementing an export led-growth industry strategy (downstream) for several leading Indonesian commodities, especially in the mining sector; fourth, building a New State Capital (IKN) as an effort to encourage investment evenly outside Java; fifth, institutional changes in the monetary and financial sector so that Bank Indonesia, the Financial Services Authority and the Deposit Insurance Corporation actively collaborate with the Ministry of Finance to support the National Economic Recovery program. In the social-health sector, the government has also implemented two main policies, namely first, the policy of limiting social mobility (Large-Scale Social Restrictions, abbreviated as PSBB, and the Implementation of Restrictions on Community Activities, abbreviated as PPKM) and second, the application of a mandatory vaccination policy to the population in the health sector to suppress the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. After implementing these various socio-economic policies broadly, various economic indicators appeared to grow positively, however, there were still disparities between economic sectors and between regions. Various indicators of people's welfare such as health, poverty, and employment also show positive growth trends, although the developments are not always consistent. Various indicators of socio-economic development that show disparities between economic sectors and between regions are, among others, the result of the application of development policies through institutional changes that occur unequally between sectors and between regions. This study evaluates the interaction between the process of changing socioeconomic institutions during the Covid19 pandemic and their impact on various current indicators of socioeconomic development in Indonesia. The policy recommendations from this study are lessons learned that cover interactions between macro and micro aspects of post-Covid development policies in Indonesia